Katie O'Hagan was born and raised in the far north of Scotland and moved to the US in 1993. She lives in Beacon, NY with her two daughters and her dog, Seamus.

Her work has shown in many galleries and museums nationally and internationally, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, The World Art Museum in Beijing, The National Arts Club and the Butler Institute of American Art. She has also received awards from the Salmagundi Club, Allied Artists of America, The Artist's Magazine, Oil Painters of America, and The Portrait Society of America.

"Remordimiento / Regret", 45" x 45"

«I guess the style is realism, but the process is a lot less organized and academic than many realist artists. I don’t have any hard and fast rules and it’s a fairly instinctive process. . . . I just start right in with the paint. Usually I begin with one eye and get that down as accurately as I can. . . . As long as that first eye is the right size and in the right place then I know I can get the rest of the painting the way I want it. . . . . It’s not the way an art school would teach to do it, but being self-taught I didn’t know any better, and now it works for me. My few attempts at beginning in a more traditional way—starting with a drawing of some kind—have never turned out well. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this approach to other people, but it’s the only way I know.»

"Ropa sucia / Dirty Laundry", 48" x 38"

«As for the rest of the creative process, I usually spend at least a couple of hours a day running in the woods with my dog. That’s when most of the ideas come together. Sometimes they just land in my head fully formed out of nowhere, but more often I get fixated on a location, or a feeling—sometimes even an interesting-looking person I’ve met—and it just rattles around in there for a while and before too long I have a light bulb moment about a way to convey the thought visually.»

"Verdadero norte / True North", 28" x 38"

"Quimera / Figment", 62" x 52"

«Once, when I was bar-tending in the East village, a customer stole money. We only knew him as “Al the Murderer,” but it so happened I had sketched him once on a slow day. The cops were able to identify him from my sketch, which I actually felt kind of bad about. Anyway, it was that kind of thing. Never taken seriously. One day, I just sat in the kitchen during nap time and sketched some fruit that was sitting in a bowl. Shortly afterwards I had a sudden urge to try oil painting, so I went to Walmart and picked up some canvas panels and some cheap paint and brushes and started to paint. I got an instructional book which I can’t remember the name of. It wasn’t very useful because I didn’t know what a lot of the terms meant. I probably picked up a few tips there, but really you have to learn by just doing it, and then years later when I met other artists I picked up a lot of information. Paul McCormack has been a great influence. He’s always generous with his time and has talked me off a ledge more than once when I’ve screwed up. I will still email artists once in a while – even if I don’t know them – to ask how they do a specific thing. I still approach a painting pretty much the same way as I’ve done since day one, though.»

_____________________________________________________________________

Retratos / Portraits

Q: Who is your favorite artist?

If I had to pick just one, it would have to be Burt Silverman. You would be hard-pressed to find an American figurative painter who doesn’t consider him to be an influence. He has been producing work of such a high quality for a long time, during a period of time in America when this type of work was disregarded, he really is an icon to a lot of us. His was the first book I bought, and I was thrilled to later have the opportunity to meet him and participate in several group shows with him—including the Boochever show.

Q: If you could work with any artist (past or present) who would it be?

A: Past would be Lucian Freud, and present would be Jenny Saville. There is a similar raw energy to their work. My own work is nothing like theirs, but I think I could learn a lot from them.

«With the more narrative paintings, there’s always the risk of being too heavy handed and dead-on. I’ve definitely been guilty of that at times, but it’s part of the learning process. The shift towards more narrative work is still relatively new, and I have a lot still to figure out. Although, as I mentioned, I don’t seek to intellectualize the ideas themselves, I’m trying to get better at what happens after the initial burst of inspiration, which is the shaping and editing of the raw idea into a successful painting. Paring it down as much as possible. Including just enough to tell the story but leaving enough open to interpretation that you aren’t spoon-feeding the viewer. The most compelling paintings have unanswered questions, but hopefully subtle ones. The question I ask most when composing a painting ~ looking at paintings – is “why?” If an object doesn’t have a reason to be there ~ even if it’s a cool object or one that would be fun to paint, I try to leave it out.»

«I never lived back in Scotland again, but from a distance I have developed a true appreciation and affection for the place where I grew up. The stark beauty of the land, walking on the moors for hours without seeing another soul, getting the “craic” down the pub, all of the crazy characters and even the dreich weather. Most of all though, I miss my dad. Other family and friends too, of course, but my Dad is hands-down the best person I know and I miss him a lot. I do get back every few years, but not as much as I’d like.»

Texts from artist's website, from an interview published in the National Gallery's blog Face to Face (Smithsonian Institution), February, 2013 you can fully read here, and another one by Deanna Elaine Piowaty published in Combustus, June, 2014 you can read here.

«The process of painting Life Raft really changed things for me. It was very different from anything else I had done, and I was incredibly self-conscious about it. In fact I was so embarrassed about what I was doing that I turned the painting to the wall whenever I left the studio, just in case someone came in and saw it. It was just so personal and overwrought.

Although I really did feel that way, there was also an element of melodramatic humor that I wasn’t sure would come across, so I resolved never to show it to anyone. There was no option to not paint it, though. I woke up with the idea during a very intense time in my life. My marriage had suddenly unraveled . . . and I was still trying to come to grips with all of the changes that were about to happen.»

«I had just finished turning my garage into a great studio, and I took refuge there. I went to the woods behind my house with a saw and cut branches to make the raft. I realized it would be the last painting I would be able to do before everything changed permanently, and so painting it was quite emotional. It was also a way for me to be still during all of the upheaval and to process what was happening. I guess it took my old life exploding to reveal a way forward.

I finished the painting the night before I had to pack up my studio and move. On impulse I posted it online and was surprised at the positive response. Putting that first really personal piece out there was very scary, but I’m glad I did it. Since then I’ve really changed direction and it’s getting easier, although it’s still very new for me. I’m developing an approach that feels more meaningful than the work I was doing before. I have a lot still to learn about how to effectively communicate my ideas, but I’m engaged with the work and the creative process in a whole new way.»

"Karen in Black" has been awarded the Gold Medal of Honor in the Allied Artists of America 2014 Annual Exhibition.

Katie y Paul, Beijing, 2012

Paul W. McCormack was born in Rahway, New Jersey in 1962.

«I’ve been drawing ever since I was a child. By the time I was in was a fifth-grader I was drawing portraits of my classmates from life. As an adult I attended duCret School of the Arts in Plainfield, New Jersey. Immediately after art school I produced Scrimshaw for about five years—this was a great way of supporting my painting habit. I’ve been very fortunate and have always created art for a living, via teaching and painting. Today I mainly create figurative works in oils, watercolor and graphite.»

A 1949 graduate of Columbia University, Silverman's work has concentrated on, as he put it, "the landscape of the human face." As a portrait artist, he has completed commissions for hundreds of noteworthy patrons. Commercially, his work has appeared in Time Magazine and The New Yorker as well as the cover art for the rock album Aqualung by Jethro Tull. Working in watercolor, oil on linen, or pastel, Silverman's style is contemporary American realism. His technique in any media seems to evoke textile-like textures on the surface of the work.

This is an open art blog, so you could find images eventually offensive or umconfortable.

If you're an artist and find here images of your art you want to be removed, just tell me and I'll do it immediately. I try to ask for permission always if artist is alive and there's a way to contact, bot not always is possible and there are things I think worth to be known.

In any case, the copyrights of all the images contained in this blog, except where noted, belong to the artists or the legal owners of such rights, and have been published nonprofit and for the only purpose of make the works known to the general public.

Enjoy "El Hurgador", make any comment you like (respecting artists, other visitors and myself), make suggestions, critics, leave your opinions and make your contributions. Always welcome.